The present disclosure relates generally to pulse oximetry and more particularly, to a method and system for affixing a sensor to a patient's skin while obtaining a spectrophotometric measurement.
This section is intended to introduce the reader to various aspects of art that may be related to various aspects of the present disclosure, which are described and/or claimed below. This discussion is believed to be helpful in providing the reader with background information to facilitate a better understanding of the various aspects of the present disclosure. Accordingly, it should be understood that these statements are to be read in this light, and not as admissions of prior art.
In the field of medicine, doctors often desire to monitor certain physiological characteristics of their patients. Accordingly, a wide variety of devices have been developed for monitoring physiological characteristics of a patient. Such devices provide doctors and other healthcare personnel with the information they need to provide the best possible healthcare for their patients. As a result, such monitoring devices have become an indispensable part of modern medicine.
One technique for monitoring certain physiological characteristics of a patient is commonly referred to as pulse oximetry, and the devices built based upon pulse oximetry techniques are commonly referred to as pulse oximeters. Pulse oximetry may be used to measure various blood flow characteristics, such as the oxygen saturation of hemoglobin in arterial blood, the volume of individual blood pulsations supplying the tissue and/or the rate of blood pulsations corresponding to each heartbeat of a patient.
Pulse oximeters may utilize a non-invasive sensor that transmits light through a patient's tissue and that photoelectrically senses the absorption and/or scattering of the transmitted light in such tissue. Physiological characteristics may then be calculated based upon the amount of light absorbed or scattered. More specifically, the light passed through the tissue is typically selected to be of one or more wavelengths that may be absorbed or scattered by the blood in an amount correlative to the amount of the blood constituent present in the blood. The amount of light absorbed and/or scattered may then be used to estimate the amount of blood constituent in the tissue using various algorithms. Changes in the amount of arterial blood in the tissue during a blood pressure pulse may change the amount and character of the light detected by the sensor's photodetector.
Pulse oximetry sensors may be placed on a patient in a location that is normally perfused with arterial blood to facilitate proper light absorption. The most common sensor sites include a patient's fingertips, toes, or earlobes. However, in patients such as newborn babies, placement of the sensor on such anatomical sites may be difficult or infeasible. Further, postpartum oxygen saturation measurements of a newborn may be needed expeditiously for sustained periods of time. However, immediately after exiting a womb, a newborn's skin may be partially, or even completely, covered with fluids, such as amniotic fluid, meconium, vernix, and/or blood. This may hinder proper attachment of a sensor to the newborn, and/or make it difficult to keep the sensor affixed to the newborn.